Warriors & Weapons

• Warriors:
• Sioux warriors were very brave and always battled on horseback.
 
• Millitary leaders called "Chiefs".

• If they were losing a battle, they would run away and fight another day because the warrioirs prefferred doing that instead of braving it out and dying for their tribe.

 

Weapons:

Coup Stick^^^ (Not really a weapon, but is still used in battle.)

 

 

Spear ^^^^

War Club ^^^

Pipe axe ^^^

Double curved bow and arrows ^^^

 

 

 

The Black Hills War

1840's: White settlers started taking up the land and the Natives would either be transported away somewhere else, or they would sign a peace treaty so that the Indians will live elsewhere as long as the government supplies them with food, financial aid, health care, and schools.

1850: The government broke the promises, so the Sioux started attacking wagons and scaring the white people away.

1851: Peace treaty for there to have parts of land where there are no whites.

1856: Forts and roads were being built in the Sioux's land, so Red cloud and other Sioux destroyed them.

1871: No more Peace treaties.

1874: White gold seekers take up land after gold is discovered.

1875: The Sioux refused to sell the land to the white people.

1876: Lt. Col. George A. Custer and over 200 men invaded the land to attack and claim what they thought was rightfully theirs. Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and many other Indians wiped them all out.

Portrait of “The Battle of Little Bighorn” on June 25, 1876.

Important People in the Black Hills war:

From the Sioux:

Red Cloud

Crazy Horse

Sitting Bull

 

From the White Side/Government:

 

Lt. Col. George A. Custer

 

The Ghost Dance Movement 1890

• In 1889, a medicine man called Wovoka had a vision that he was taken to the spirit world and saw the earth swallowing up the whites and bringing back dead ancestors.
 
• God instructed him that if he and his people did the Ghost dance every night, his vision would become a realityWhites believed that the religion’s purpose was to kill all of their kind.

 

• On December 28, 1890, the Lakota were escorted to Wounded Knee by the military, where they had a camp at Wounded Knee Creek.

 

 

• The next morning on December 29, 1890, the millitary forced the Lakota to give up their weapons and then started shoorting them all.

 

• 290 Lakota Men, Woman, and children died.

 

• 33 soldiers died, and 20 medals were given to the surviving ones.

 

• The Ghost Dance was over, and the Sioux lost hope in ever winning against the whites.

 

 The Ghost Dance ^^^

Result of the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890 ^^^

 

 

Religion/Beliefs

The Sioux worshipped the "Wakan Tanka" otherwise known as the Great Spirit.

• There is a spirit or God for everything that exists.

• There were underwater spirits, The White Buffalo Woman, and The Thunderbirds, which are in the sky.

• The Buffalo Woman would give each tribe a medicine pipe, which helps people see visions.

• For the Sioux, visions and dreams were ways to talk to the spirits.

The White Buffalo Woman ^^^

• Because of the White Buffalo Woman, the Sioux had a wheel that represents the four colos of life, and the four directions. (North, South, East, West.)

• It's called the Medicine Wheel. The Four colors are:

North – (Red) wisdom, place where the ancient ones passed over

South – (White) youth, friendships

East - (Yellow) beginnings, family

West – (Black) solitude, adulthood

The Sundance

It lasts for 28 days, but the last 4 days are the most important.

On the second, they cut a tree bring it to the center of the ceremony for the piercing.

On the third, male sun-dancers who agreed to be get two incisions cut in their chest by the Medicine Man/Men.

Then pegs are added into the holes, making the sundancer blessed.

The dancers go to the tree in the center of the ceremony where there are ropes attached to the top, and attach these ropes to the pegs.

they dance to and back from the tree three times, and then yank themselves back with all of their might, ripping off the skin where the pegs are held in.

The skin is then cut off the pegs, and placed at the center base of the tree, completing the sacrifice.

Afterwards the participants get to endure a feast especially for them to celebrate.

Only the Lakota Sioux contains the piercing for their ceremony.

They are the warriors of the American Indians, and consequently sacrifice for everyone.

Sketch of the piercing for the Sundance.